Shema Koleinu Staff

TABLE OF CONTENTS BIRCHAS HARO’EH אמר לחכמה אחתי את GIVE ME A BREAK! RABBI BARUCH SEEING IS BELIEVING SHNEUR AGRONIN PESACH MENDELSON RABBI YONI STONE PAGE 2 PAGE 18 PAGE 36 SHEMA KOLEINU IS IT RIGHT TO LIGHT A VORT PER NIGHT RIGHT TO LEFT OR LEFT KEEP GOING UP STAFF YAAKOV WEINSTOCK SHUA PARISER TO RIGHT? PAGE 38 EZRA SCHECHTER PAGE 21 EDITORSINCHIEF PAGE 4 YISROEL HOCHMAN, ‘21 SHIMI KAUFMAN, ‘21 CHANUKAH: THE START THE FIRE WHAT'S THE DEAL MISSING MESECHTA HEAD WRITER SHIMI KAUFMAN WITH GELT? YOSEF WEINER PAGE 23 ISAAC COHEN PAGE 6 YESHURIN SORSCHER ’21 PAGE 41 ASSISTANT HEAD WRITER WHAT ARE WE REALLY WHY FLICKERING A GOOD OL’ SLAP YOSEF FLAMENBAUM ’21 CELEBRATING ON LIGHTS ON CHANUKAH IN THE FACE CHANUKAH? ISN'T THAT BAD RAFFI WEIL EMANUEL IZRAILOV MEIR NESS EXECUTIVE EDITORS PAGE 26 PAGE 9 PAGE 42 YITZCHAK HAGLER MEIR MORELL ’22 WHY IS THERE NO MAOZ TZUR: ORDINARY MIRACLES DISTRIBUTION WHAT IS THAT? MENTION OF THE OIL IN AARON SISSER AL HANISSIM? MANAGER MEIR MORELL PAGE 28 PAGE 10 YONATAN BURNS PAGE 44 NOAM STEINMETZ ‘21 RABBINIC ADVISOR RABBI BARUCH THE MESSAGE SHOULD THE MENORAH THE SOURCE OF TRUE OF THE OIL GO BACK OUTSIDE? JEWISH MIGHT PESACH MENDELSON AKIVA KRA RABBI MAYER SCHILLER RABBI SHIMON SCHENKER PAGE 13 PAGE 30 PAGE 46 ADMINISTRATION RABBI JOSHUA KAHN, HEAD OF SCHOOL RABBI MICHAEL TAUBES, MITZVOS AND THE LIGHT IS WITHIN ROSH YESHIVA אין בין חנוכה MIRACLES ARYEH לפורים אלא... ELISHA PRICE NOAM STEINMETZ MARGOLIN PAGE 15 PAGE 33 PAGE 48 RABBI SHIMON SCHENKER, ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL RABBI DOV EMERSON, DIRECTOR OF TEACHING CHANUKAH: FROM AHARON THE SANCTITY WOMEN AND AND LEARNING TO THE CHASHMONAYIM OF SHABBOS PIRSUMEI NISAH SAMUEL GORMAN PINCHUS COHEN YISROEL HOCHMAN PAGE 17 PAGE 49 PAGE 34 GIVE ME A BREAK! The Gemara in Shabbos (21b) famously recounts the terse but inspiring history behind Chanukah. While the Gemara describes the events that took SHNEUR place, the Rishonim and Acharonim are busy discussing the actual meaning AGRONIN of the name “Chanukah”, and what aspect of the holiday it refers to. The Ran, for example, explains that the name quite overtly refers to the YUHSB ‘21 rededication, or chanukas habayis, of the altar in the second Beis Hamikdash following its ritual contamination at the hands of the oppressive Shneur Agronin is a Seleucid Greeks. Citing a secondary opinion, the Ran explains that the Senior at MTA. He lives in Hollywood, Florida, and is “Chanukah” is actually a compound word composed of two phrases - currently a talmid in Rabbi “Chanu,” meaning “they rested,” and “kah,” constituting the number Cohen's Beis Medrash Katan Shiur. twenty-five by adding the letters chaf and hei according to their gematria values. Thus, Chanukah denotes the well-deserved rest finally attained by the Jewish warriors on the 25th day of the month of Kislev. However, the Maharsha, an early acharon, points out a glaring inconsistency within this second approach. Since the days of Chanukah do not include an abstention from melachah (within the context of Shabbos and Yom Tov) to any extent, what “rest” did the Chashmonayim supposedly come to enjoy upon their victory against the occupying Greeks? If anything, the Chashmonayim found themselves performing one melachah particularly diligently during the eight-day afair - that of sechitah, the extraction of liquids (oil from olives in this case)! The Maharsha consequently favors the first approach, relating Chanukah to the chanukas habayis performed by the Jews after reentering the Beis Hamikdash. Yet, upon further reflection, the Maharsha’s objection appears strange. The Maharsha asks how the Chashmonayim “rested” on the 25th of Kislev if melachah was not forbidden to them. Presumably, we could ask the exact opposite: how did they not rest!? The Chashmonayim, at this point, found themselves victorious after fighting a lengthy, tiresome, and undesired war with what was among the most powerful empires in human history. At long last, the fighting was over, and they would be able to resume their service in the Beis Hamikdash. Could there be a greater form of rest than this? Why does the Maharsha seem to only categorize “rest” in the context of whether or not a prohibition of melachah exists, while negating the more metaphorical but still quite legitimate rest of post-war peacetime? Perhaps an answer to this question can be found upon a broader analysis of the oppression endured by the Jews at the hands of the Greeks. The Rambam writes in his Mishneh Torah (Hilchos Megillah U’Chanukah 3:1) that the Greeks forbade Torah observance - but, never did they actually threaten the Jewish people as a whole with genocide, as the evil Haman did around two centuries previous. The plight of the Jews at that time was of purely spiritual nature, not marred by any widespread physical afiction, 2 unlike the Jews of Persia under Haman and Achashveirosh, or of those to come over two millennia later during World War II. Thus, when the Chashmonayim brought an end to Greek rule in Eretz Yisroel, an epoch of spiritual freedom began, which would last for another two-hundred or so years. With this in mind, it may then be logical to view the ultimate and primary goal of the Chashmonayim as not only Eretz Yisroel’s physical independence from any foreign ruler, but the spiritual liberation of her people. While the Jews collectively resumed their uninhibited observance of Torah and mitzvos in realizing this goal, the brave warriors themselves found little spiritual respite despite this concept shining at the top of their agenda. Yes, their strenuous conflict had come to an end, but before them laid a long and tumultuous road to Klal Yisroel’s spiritual reconstruction, which began with a clear violation of spiritual rest - the pressing of olives. Thus, the very climax of Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisroel marked by the events surrounding Chanukah is forged in an act forbidden on Shabbos and Yom Tov, along with many others involved in rededicating the Beis HaMikdash. Perhaps it is in light of this that the Maharsha takes issue with the notion that the Chashmonayim rested on the 25th of Kislev - when it comes to the supreme spiritual rest that they struggled valiantly and victoriously to obtain for the nation, they indeed found little, if any, amongst themselves. On Chanukah, it could be worthwhile to remember that we too enjoy “spiritual rest” in the form of our Torah observance as citizens of a nation whose philosophical foundation guarantees our freedom in such a regard. While melachah may not be forbidden on Chanukah as it is on Shabbos and Yom Tov, perhaps it should be a time of reflection upon the fact that, today, our abstention from such activities on those occasions is a right we enjoy in stark contrast to our ancestors living under Greek rule. May we resultantly renew the value we place on Torah and mitzvos as a whole, calling to mind the sacrifices of those who came before us to grant their descendants such sublime liberty of the soul. 3 IS IT RIGHT TO LIGHT RIGHT TO LEFT OR LEFT TO RIGHT? When I was asked to write a dvar Torah for Chanukah, the first thing I thought was “how can it be Chanukah already? It was just Sukkos!” Yet here we are- EZRA Chanukah 5781. With Chanukah comes the mitzvah of lighting the SCHECHTER menorah, and there are many questions and diferening opinions about how to go about doing that. One of the more famous machloksim relating to the YUHSB ‘22 mitzvah is between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel, about how many candles we should light each night. Beis Shammai holds that we should start with 8 Ezra Schechter is a Junior candles on the first night, and do one less candle each night. This is in order at MTA. He lives in Bergenfield, New Jersey, to correspond with what happened with the miracle in the Beis Hamikdash and is currently a talmid in - as each day went by, the oil continued to run lower and lower, and the Rabbi Mendelson's Shiur. candle got dimmer and dimmer. So too, we should light fewer candles each night. Beis Hillel has a diferent approach, that we should start with one candle, and each day add an additional candle, corresponding to the fact that the miracle got greater and greater each night the oil continued to burn. We follow Beis Hillel, starting with one candle and adding another each night. Now that we know how many candles we light each night, what order do we light them in? The Maharik (quoted by the Beis Yosef) writes that we start with lighting one candle on the first night all the way on the right, and then adding each new candle to the left of the others, lighting each night’s candles from left to right (ie. newest to oldest). This argument is based on a Gemara in Sotah (15b) which says “...kol pinos she’atah ponah lo yihu elah derech yamin”- any time a person turns, he should turn to the right. Because of this, the Maharik says, we start lighting all the way on the left, and continue turning towards the rightmost candle. The Terumas Hadeshen agrees, but only in a case where one is lighting in a doorway with a mezuzah, as the mitzvah was performed in the time of the Gemara. Since the doorway has a mezuzah on the right side, we start at the furthest candle and make our way towards the mezuzah. However, if one is lighting without a mezuzah, the Terumas Hadeshen holds that the first candle to be lit should be the one closest to the door.

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